A Terrible Secret
by shaunathan
Summary: In a slightly different world than that of Pokemon Adventures, Yellow has to conceal a terrible secret...


Mist swirled around the girl's feet, obscuring the environment with a thick sheet of white fog. She looked around, trying to discern something that would let her know where she was. With nothing forthcoming, she took tentative steps forward, mistrusting even the ground before her.

Before long, the girl came to a building. She didn't seem to approach it. It looked to her as though one second it didn't exist, and then the next the dense mist gave way and it was there. An arched black door rose, cutting into the stone wall in front of her. A door handle protruded, offering to let her turn it and enter. The girl reached for the handle, but hesitated. She thought there was something familiar about this door. It tickled a memory at the back of her mind that felt as though it, too, was surrounded by a layer of fog.

Inside the building, the girl found people—other girls and boys of all ages and sizes. As she entered and the door slammed shut behind her with a mighty thud, the other children turned to stare at her. She felt them looking through her, straight to the secret she held close to her heart. On every face, the girl saw fear, disgust, hatred... all because of her secret—all directed at her. Everyone in the room feared or despised her, and most did both.

"I'm not scary," she protested. "I'm not weird."

"Yes you are," several chorused. "We hate you. You're like him. You'll hurt us. You'll do bad things to us."

"I won't," the girl protested again, but the children didn't listen.

"Freak," one of them called.

"Freak," another agreed.

One by one, the children took up the chant, "Freak...freak... freak..." until they all repeated it, a thousand tongues chanting the same word over and over, assaulting the ears of the girl, who hugged her arms close to her body.

She knew this place. This was the orphanage, the one she'd stayed at before her uncle had found her. Her stomach twisted and turned as the chant, "Freak... freak... freak..." rang again and again in her ears, forcing her to remember that fateful night twelve years ago, the one she'd tried so hard to repress.

"I'm not a freak," she moaned, tears in her eyes. She reached toward a boy and grabbed his shoulder. "Tell them—I'm not a freak."

The boy turned to face her, and her heart stopped because she knew him. She knew that red jacket and cap, and that unruly black hair. The boy glared at her with a mixture of anger and fear, and said, "Get away from me, freak."

Yellow bolted awake, her skin clammy and her face streaked with tears. She clutched her blanket close to her chest and looked around wildly, convinced she'd find a crowd of children circling around her, calling her a monster or a freak, but all she saw was the darkness of her own room, lit only by a faint night light in the corner.

The young healer was still breathing fast from her scare, her chest pumping in and out against her blanket at a million miles per hour. Slowly, slowly, she came to grips with the fact that what she'd seen wasn't a present reality. She'd just had yet another nightmare. Again.

Her eyes were still watering, and it didn't help to have the orphanage at the forefront of her mind. Every time Yellow thought about that place, she felt like going to a very private room where nobody could see her and crying until she couldn't feel the old scars anymore. Her stomach warped as she involuntarily thought back to that place, where she'd lived since before she could remember. She thought about that day, that one fateful day, when she'd discovered her abilities, and the entire orphanage had collectively made her into a demon.

She checked the clock. It read 2:24 AM. Flopping onto her back again, she sighed and tried to fight the tension in her throat that the breath caused, the tightness that urged her to start to sob. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hands and erased the tear tracks that had formed while she slept. While she was awake, she would be strong. While she was awake, she wouldn't cry. But while she was asleep...

Yellow knew it would be unwise to stay awake. It was too early, and if she stayed up now, she'd crash by sunset the next day. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw the orphanage again, the children shrinking back and calling her names, and worst of all: him, her best friend, the one she'd promised she'd wait for, for whom her heart pounded. She shut her eyes and saw him scowling at her with that awful mixture of fear and revulsion, and her eyes grew teary with heartbreak.

So instead of closing her eyes and waiting helplessly for more nightmares, she got out of bed, threw on a nightshirt, and made her way to the kitchen. On the way, she checked in her uncle's room, hopeful that he might have come home while she slept. To her disappointment, his bed was pristine and empty, just as she'd left it four weeks ago when he'd gone on a fishing trip. Her uncle was always on a fishing trip.

Another person who didn't want to be around her because of her curse, she thought despondently, letting her arms slump to her side. Just because he was her uncle didn't mean he wasn't scared and repulsed just like all the others who knew.

The despair of defeat made it hard to force her limbs to function, but Yellow managed to prepare the coffee pot and brew a few cups. Coffee was her refuge. When she was tired, there was coffee. When she couldn't sleep because of night terrors or bad memories, there was coffee. When she accidentally used her cursed abilities and suffered the toll they exacted on her life force, there was coffee. She knew her terrible sleep schedule and overreliance on caffeine would cause problems eventually, but coffee kept the current problems in her mind at bay, and so she drank it like it was the only antidote to a deadly poison.

She glanced at the clock again and involuntarily yawned when she saw it was only 2:27 AM. Time felt like it was a crawl. Yellow took a very long drink of coffee and considered her options. It would be a long while until the dark of the night faded away. The coffee would keep her awake, at the very worst accelerating her heart rate so she couldn't possibly go to sleep, but without stimuli, she would fall victim to daydreams, which were just as bad as nightmares. She didn't have a TV, or many books, or video games, or any other medium to hold her interest until daylight.

Could she call... him? Her throat went dry at the idea and her heart started to beat harder than the coffee could incite. No, she chided herself, it was too late. He would be asleep. Knowing her luck, she'd just wake him up with the call and annoy him.

But texting was a different story. Yellow pulled out her Pokégear and thumbed clumsily through the short list of contacts until she found the name she was looking for, the one she'd once added a little heart by but then deleted it almost immediately in embarrassment. She typed a short message: "Want to go for a walk?"

She pressed send and took another long drink of coffee, draining what felt like a full cup. She didn't expect an answer, and instead pondered once more what she could do to stay alert and awake until morning.

To Yellow's surprise, however, her Pokégear buzzed almost immediately, surprising her so much she almost dropped it. She stared at the message on the small screen. "Sure. Viridian?"

She fumbled with the keyboard, hastily typing, "Yeah, the forest?"

Another immediate response. "Be there in ten."

Ten minutes was not much time at all. In her haste to get ready, Yellow drained the pot of coffee so fast that she slopped some down her chest. There wasn't enough time to start the washer, so she balled up her shirt and left it on the kitchen table. She quickly threw on some deodorant, checked her teeth, and slipped into a skirt and yellow hoodie. When she came out the front door, she was still fumbling with her hair tie.

Moments later, a dark shape swooped out of the sky and stopped in front of her. Veiled in shadows, illuminated only by the moonlight, Red dismounted his Aerodactyl and returned it to its ball.

The boy smiled when he saw Yellow. "Hey."

"Hi," Yellow breathed. She'd been so caught off guard that he'd actually come—for she was always mistrustful of anything that might bring her joy, like this meet-up—that she'd frozen with her hands holding her hair back. Blushing, she hastily resumed constraining it to a ponytail.

"Couldn't sleep?" Red asked in that open, inquisitive way he always asked questions. After so many weeks of hard interrogation by the orphanage workers, Yellow appreciated his soft tone.

"Nah, nightmares," she mumbled around the hair tie held between her lips. "You?"

"I couldn't stop thinking," he admitted. "It's nothing important."

Yellow didn't press him. Partly it was out of the instinctual fear she had developed of asking too many questions. When she had requested too much information about who her parents were, or why she might have her abilities, the orphanage staff had reacted... explosively. She still winced when she remembered it. But mostly it was out of respect for his boundaries. If he wanted to keep secrets, then he was welcome to. It was only fair, seeing how much she concealed from him.

"Shall we?" she asked with a gesture toward the trees once her hair was as close to orderly as she could manage.

Red smiled again. "All right. You'll have to guide me, though. I've never been in this way before."

"Follow me, then," she said, returning the smile. Around Red, the difficult act of smiling became easy.

The wound their way deep into the woods, past dark bushes tinged with eerie purples and blues, under black trees with branches like long, spindly fingers that danced in the breeze. As the shadows deepened, Yellow slowly realized this particular route may have not been the best choice. Her heart began to pound with fright. All it would take was a white fog at her feet to replicate her nightmare.

But Red was with her, and that made it all okay. Except for the fact that he'd been in her nightmare as well. He'd called her "freak" just like all the other kids when he learned of her secret.

She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until Red spoke. "Hey, this place seems kind of familiar. Isn't this where we first met?"

And so it was. As Yellow looked around the dark clearing, the memory came trickling back to her. This was the clearing where a young boy on a journey had saved a young orphan girl from a rampaging Pokémon. He'd taught that little girl that Pokémon were friends. He'd shaped her optimism, her cheerfulness—all the things that the terrified children and the cruel adults at the orphanage had tried to rob her of—all the things that had been her rock in the worst of times. That young boy had saved that orphan girl's life, in more ways than one.

Suddenly, through the silence of the deep night, a pitiful cry rang out. Yellow stiffened, immediately searching for a source. She turned on her heels and pointed an equally concerned Red in the right direction. "It's over there."

The source of the wail came from underneath a rocky overhang. Yellow knelt down and scraped through the fallen leaves until she found the creature that had made the noise. There, impaled through the middle by a fallen rock stalactite, was a tiny Caterpie. The Pokémon's sides heaved with the effort of breathing. With each painstaking huff, green blood oozed from around the rock. The poor creature was seconds away from death.

Red knelt beside her and stared down at the injured Pokémon in shock. "Oh no," he muttered. "I left my potions at home. We've got to get it to a Pokémon Center..." But that idea was out of the question already. The Caterpie would be dead long before they even made it back to Yellow's house. "This is terrible..."

Yellow's attention remained fixated on the hurt creature. Her breathing was shallow and her eyes were wide. In her mind, a war raged. On one side, she was pleading with herself to save the Pokémon. She had the ability to do it. She should use her powers to restore the Caterpie's health, secrets be damned. But on the other side, she was crippled by fear. If she used her powers, Red would find out. He would hate her, just like everyone else. He would never want to see her again.

And all the while, the Caterpie lay dying at her knees. It stared up at her, pleading with its eyes, begging her to do something, anything to stop the unbearable pain.

But her secret. She couldn't reveal what she'd kept hidden from her friends for ten years, especially not to him. She was strong. She had become tough because of abuse. Her spirit was firm. But if he, of all people—he who she admired, he who she looked up to, he who she loved—if he turned against her, called her a freak... she would shatter.

But another groan came from the dying Caterpie, this time quieter, mournful, closer to death. Yellow looked down at the creature and saw, reflected in its pool-like eyes, a younger version of herself, beaten down by her peers, in tears because of hatred and isolation, hoping that someone, anyone would rescue her from the nightmare—

A stricken groan escaped her own mouth as she reached down and placed one hand against the Caterpie's side. Where she touched, a golden glow radiated.

"Yellow?" Red wondered, more confused than anything. "What are you...?"

With her other hand, Yellow gently wiggled the stalactite until it fully exited the Caterpie's body. In its place was a gaping hole, but that began to knit itself back together right before their eyes. With the strength of the Viridian Forest itself running through the Pokémon's body, all its ailments were coming undone, leaving only a whole, fresh form in their place.

Before long, the Caterpie was as good as new. Yellow bottled up her powers once again and let the grateful bug-type wriggle off through the leaves to safer territory.

She couldn't bear to look Red in the face. His silence was proof enough she'd scared him, just like she'd scared everyone so many years ago. Soon his fear would turn to anger, and his anger to hate, and he would scorn her like everyone else. "Well, there it is," she said in a tight, restrained voice. But the facade came down almost instantly, and tears began to pour down her face. "Now you know wh-what I am. I d-don't blame you if you h-h-hate me. I am just a... a freak."

She prepared herself for the usual string of abuse she'd heard so many times before. 'You're a witch!' 'Get away from me!' 'Freak.' She even prepared for him to shove her away or to kick her into the dirt and run. What she didn't prepare for, though, was for Red to wrap his arms around her and pull her close to his chest.

"Yellow, I could never hate you," he murmured, stroking her shaking back. "And what do you mean, 'freak?' That was a miracle!"

She was still sobbing. "N-No, it was demonic!" she repeated what she'd heard her whole childhood, for it was all she'd known. "It's not a miracle; it's a curse!"

She felt him shake his head, and then he said seven words that echoed deep in her soul. "Nothing that heals can be a curse."

Yellow raised her red-rimmed eyes from his chest and looked into his. "B-But these are the same as Lance's. Don't you get it? These powers can hurt. They can kill. They could kill..." She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't want to tolerate the thought of accidentally killing... him.

Red reached forward and wiped the tears from her eyes. His expression was soft with concern. "Yellow, do you remember what I told you back then, about how Pokémon aren't good or evil—that they just reflect their trainers?"

She nodded wordlessly.

"Then if these are the same powers Lance had, they work the same way. Lance used his powers to hurt and kill because he was a horrible person. But you're not like him. You're the sweetest, most kindhearted girl I've ever met. Your powers reflect that. They don't hurt, they heal."

And she knew, then, that he was right. Despite his lack of familiarity with what he was describing, she knew on a deep level that he was right. It felt as if the Forest itself was speaking to her telepathically, telling her to listen to the man.

For so long, she'd lived in fear of her powers. She'd restrained them, kept them hidden, because she'd been terrified, just like the rest of the children at the orphanage, that she might hurt someone. Their paranoia, having known Lance's cruel use of the abilities, had made them terrified and hateful of Yellow when she'd showed the same. He had hurt them, and so they preemptively hurt her. But now she had no reason to be afraid.

"So you... you don't hate me?" she asked, staring up at Red's concerned eyes.

He smiled. "No, I don't." He pulled her close to himself again in a tight, reassuring embrace. "That couldn't be further from the truth..." this


End file.
